My First Day of School

Hello everyone. The new school year has started and with it Babelis teachers are going to start their blogs for all of you to read interesting things. They will be posting news, important events, remarkable links, their tales and stories, etc. so that you can have a constant contact with the language even if you’re not that good reader. Contents will be adapted and aimed at all kinds of public (we’ll try).

This post is about September and the beginning of the school year. Here you are my personal First Day of School story. Feel free to comment and/or add your own First Day Story in whatever language you want to practise.

“I remember perfectly my very first day of school. Back at that time in Spain, it was called “Parbulos” and you usually started your school life at the age of 4. So, here I was, a 4 year-old girl with new bag pack and school things. Eveything smelt of new: It was a new day, a new month of the year, new place, new people to meet… I soon got a new best friend (together with my old best friend, if at the age of 4 you can use the word “old” at all).

Once inside the classroom the teacher asked us to take out the book we were going to use that school year. I opened it and I started reading all the letters there. It was really interesting and the drawings were nicely done too. Whereas the teacher was talking to some of my classmates, I read and read turning the pages quickly (it was an “ABC” book, it is not as if I was reading The Lords of the Rings!). I remember it as if it was yesterday:

A de Araña. And then, there were some other sentences, very simple and plain, with that word in them: “LA ArAñA AmAliA” blah blah blah. I turned the page.

E de Elefante.

I de Iglesia

O de Oso (oh I loved the bear drawing, because I loved animals, as every child in the world).

U de Uva (the grapes had a bluish colour, which I remember puzzled me at that time, since my mum and grandma had always given me the greenish type, also called “uva catalana de toda la vida“).

And that was it. I had finished the book so I raised my hand and I said out loud: “I’ve finished teacher!”. And she replied: “What exactly have you finished young lady?”. And I said again very proudly: “The book, of course. I’ve finished it. What do I have to do now, miss?”

I don’t know what happened next, but that day the teacher called my mum and told her that I had just done the work of a whole year in only 10 minutes, and that she would have to buy another book, more adapted to my needs and capacities. My mum always reminds me that I started reading at the age of 3, basically by self-learning, and that my old nursery school teacher didn’t know what to do with me. In the end, I believe she must have been a good teacher, because I never dropped out of school and never felt bored either. And the following first days of school that came afterwards (Primary, Secondary and College), had all the same smell for me: the smell of something new and good coming ahead… “